SECRETS OF ‘HEREFORDSHIRE’ WW2 AGENT

This year’s inaugural Hereford Military History Festival (26–28 September) features a talk with a strong emotional draw for every Herefordian interested in the history of WW2 and special operations.

Discussing his outstanding novel, Ipseity, Charles Pither will be highlighting the workings of a little-known, top-secret WW2 espionage unit and its links with the courageous and tragic ‘local’ heroine: Violette Szabo GC.

Violette is remembered today in the little museum dedicated to her in a quiet corner of Wormelow, between Hereford and Ross-on-Wye. From her childhood onwards, including periods of leave from her wartime service, she was a regular visitor to the village home of relatives who lived at what was then called ‘The Old Kennels’ (‘Cartref’ today).

Following the death of her French husband at the Battle of El Alamein in the autumn of 1942, Violette was recruited into the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to be trained in the cloak-and-dagger crafts of undercover missions in occupied Europe.

A fluent French-speaker, Violette was destined to coordinate with resistance fighters in France and she – along with every other agent sent into enemy territory – trusted her life on the forged documents that ‘proved’ her false identity.

These were meticulously designed and printed by a team of eccentric but brilliant artists and printers at the top-secret SOE Station XIV, based at Briggens House in Essex: ‘the Bletchley Park that no one has ever heard of’. There, experts in all the printer’s skills painstakingly copied authentic Nazi-issued paperwork and passes to ensure those who carried them stood the best chance of evading detection.

Charles Pither’s talk takes place in the ballroom of Hereford’s Green Dragon Hotel at 12.30pm on Saturday 27 September. Further details and ticketing information about this and all the festival events can be found on the festival website: www.herefordmilitaryhistoryfestival.com